More than 100 people, including the spiritual leader of Nigeria's Muslims, were killed on Sunday when a commercial airliner crashed after takeoff in the capital Abuja, officials and aviation sources said.
"The ADC plane took off this morning from Lagos to Sokoto en route to Abuja with around 110 passengers and crew. After dropping some passengers in Abuja, it took off for Sokoto. Some moments after taking off, it lost control and crashed," an aviation source told AFP.
Sokoto State government spokesman Mustapha Sheu said that Mohammadu Maccido, the Sultan of Sokoto and head of the caliphate, the country's Muslim community, was among those who perished in the crash.
"The Sultan of Sokoto was among the dead," Sheu told AFP, adding that the sultan's son, who was a senator, was also killed, together with the northern state's deputy governor, education commissioner and another senator.
"There was a crash this morning involving an ADC passenger plane. The plane crashed and burst into flames at the outskirts of Abuja," a spokesman for the National Emergency Management Agency, Ibrahim Farinloye, said before casualty figures began to emerge.
The state-run News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) said that top-ranking government officials, senators, politicians, the son of one of Nigeria's former presidents and an influential traditional ruler, had been on the ill-fated aircraft, owned by the private Nigerian airline ADC.
At least four people survived the accident, according to reports.
Rescue operations were going on at the site of the crash, the latest to hit Nigeria's aviation industry in recent months, NAN reported.
Last month, 14 military officers, including 10 generals, were killed when their small airforce plane crashed into the hills in central Benue State.
The military officers were on their way to Obudu in southern Cross River State to attend the annual chief of army staff conference on September 17 when the Dornier 228-221, crashed into the hills of Korti in central Benue State minutes before arrival.
In December, a Sosoliso commercial jet crashed on landing in the oil city of Port Harcourt, killing all the 117 people on board.
Two months earlier, a Bellview commercial plane crashed in Lisa village, near Lagos, killing more than 100 people on board.
Nigerian President has ordered investigation into Sunday's tragedy.
"President Olusegun Obasanjo is deeply and profoundly shocked and saddened by the news of the reported air crash of an airliner in the environ of the federal capital territory today," presidential spokeswoman Oluremi Oyo said in a statement.
"The president has called for a full report and investigation into the crash. He condoled all Nigerians and especially the families and friends and associates of those who may have been on board the airline," she said.